WHEN IT COMES TO REPRESENTATION, TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCES HAVE A DIVERSITY PROBLEM

We can address this challenge by creating space for women* and other underrepresented groups of speakers to get their start.

We believe that the world is better when we can learn from the brilliance of the many, not just the few. 300 Seconds events give our peers, and in particular women, a means of gaining confidence and experience speaking in public.

We give new speakers the opportunity to gain confidence and improve speaking skills in a safe, supportive environment. Our veteran speakers volunteer their time to sharpen up presentations, provide support, connections, and tips on shaping a personal brand.

*By women we mean all women (trans, intersex and cis), all those who experience oppression as women (including non-binary and gender non-conforming people) and all those who identify as women.

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm John du Pre Gauntt Host and Curator for the Augmented City Podcast and Contributing Writer for the Economist will paint a vision for Chatbots and AI in the near future (~2025) with a special emphasis on autonomous vehicles and other forms of advanced mobility

7:00 pm - 8:00 pm Steve DeRoos, a HP Strategist and Technical Business Architect will share his experiences transforming HP Customer Support through Virtual Agents/Chatbots and Artificial Intelligence.

PDX Chatbots is a group of designers, engineers, innovators and business strategists who are dreaming up the next generation of digital experiences beyond clicks and swipes. From Alexa to Facebook Messenger and Slack to Cortana, get your front row seat to learn, share and inspire as these exciting new experience models gain market share faster than mobile did at its peak growth in the US.

Meetup focus on inspiration, education and collaboration. A happy hour will precede each Meetup with sponsored food and beverages.

CHIFOO presents "Bounded Irrationality in Everyday Moments" with Michelle Kittrell, Cambia Health Solutions!

If we look closely at interactions that frustrate us we can clearly see bounded irrationality at play, disrupting our ‘expected’ path of outcomes. This talk will cover how the dynamic of neuroscience, culture, and personal preferences create “unique” rational experiences.

About the Speaker

Michelle Kittrell is a research analyst at Cambia Health Solutions.

Come join CHIFOO for our tenth and final speaker event for 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities".

Join us for an afternoon of shopping and zine-making focused on technology and inclusion! Recompiler Media and Microcosm Publishing are having a feminist zine pop-up shop on October 6 as part of Resolution Fest. We'll have copies of recent issues of The Recompiler, a selection of BubbleSort Zines, work from Microcosm, zines by Sarah Mirk, knit hats by Sticks & Strings, and loads of stickers. Bring your ideas for a zine of your own -- we'll have supplies ready to go! Please RSVP to confirm you've read our code of conduct.

CHIFOO presents "Designer Myopia" with Rian Van Der Merwe, Wildbit!

The all-too-common phenomenon whereby, despite our best intentions, we sometimes design with a nearsightedness that results in websites and applications that please ourselves and impress our peers but don’t meet user and business goals.

About the Speaker

Rian Van Der Merwe (@RianVDM) designs and builds high quality software that people love to use, and I wrote a book about it called “Making It Right“.

He spent seven years in Silicon Valley and then moved to Portland, OR in April 2014. He has been working as a Product Manager for Wildbit and an independent author, speaker, and product consultant with Elezea.

Come join CHIFOO for our ninth speaker event for 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities".

CHIFOO presents "Let's Pretend: Using Personas to Play with Personas to Play with Problems" with Carolyn Chandler and Anna van Slee!

To uncover the most common problems, designers must empathize with their users and come to know the spaces and times in which they move. In this interactive presentation, UX guru Carolyn and game designer Anna take personas and other empathy exercises to the next level.

About the Speakers

Carolyn Chandler, Mira Fitness

Carolyn has been working in the field of User Experience Design for over 16 years, and was named one of “Chicago’s Tech 50” by Crain’s Magazine. Now she leads the Experience Design efforts at Mira Fitness, which offers a wellness-focused wearable designed for women.

Anna van Slee, Sideshow Collectibles

Anna is Director of New Brands at Sideshow Collectibles, a production manager who is hands-on with production, particularly in writing/editing, visual design, UX/CX design, brand strategy and content creation.

Together, Anna and Carolyn, coauthored "Adventures in Experience Design" which teaches experience design to beginners with games and activities.

Come join CHIFOO for our eighth speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities".

CHIFOO presents "Designing for Happiness" with Pamela Pavliscak, Change Sciences?!

What does it mean to design for happiness? Based on a combination of design research and data science, this session will explore what makes people happiest when they use technology and what we can learn from that to design for positive outcomes.

About the Speaker

Pamela Pavliscak founded Change Sciences. She has a book about designing for happiness coming out in the next year and is a frequent speaker at conferences like SXSW, Collision, Future of Web Design, and Webvisions.

Come join CHIFOO for our seventh speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

CHIFOO presents "Empowering Community Moderators to Make Values-Based Decisions" with Jasen Balmat, OkCupid!

Working in tandem with scripted filtration tools, Moderators act as gate-keepers. Often under-paid and poorly supported, Community Moderators work invisibly at the heart of the social community. Each day, these individuals make thousands of judgement calls on behalf of the community they serve. At their best, Community Moderators provide personal care and an attention to detail which enriches each community member’s experience on an individual level. Their careful decisions contribute to a sense of safety and well-being that is the hallmark of a healthy community.

About the Speaker

Jasen Balmat is a visual artist turned tech-geek who leads the Community Moderation team at OkCupid. He holds BFA from The Savannah College of Art and Design.

Come join CHIFOO for our sixth speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

CHIFOO presents "Be Here When: Faith Based Communities Contemplate Technologies for Themselves" with John D. Smith, Co-Author of Digital Habitats!

Churches and faith-based communities live with many contradictions that are completely irrational depending on where you stand or what hat you wear. Their irrationality challenges our normal thinking about design, technology, and human interaction. To understand what’s going on as a community’s technology steward you need to stand inside and outside, be local and nonlocal, be in the organization and outside, be a newbie and an old-timer, have a short-timer’s view and play the long game, be both geek and technophobe, and observe it all as an actor and as a barefoot ethnographer. Every day.

About the Speaker

John co-authored “Digital Habitats: stewarding technology for communities” with Etienne Wenger and Nancy White. He is a buddhist meditation teacher with a master’s degree in planning and architecture from the University of New Mexico.

Come join CHIFOO for our fifth speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

CHIFOO presents "Marketing Isn't Storytelling. It's world building." with Ian Lurie, Portent

For years, we’ve referred to ‘marketing as storytelling.’ This creates a problem: Storytelling involves a single narrative arc, and our customers don’t want to be dragged into a single arc. They want a space in which they can move about and create their own stories.

Come to this session to hear how playing Dungeons and Dragons teaches great marketing, the basic principles of marketing worldbuilding, and why this may have broader application.

About the Speaker

Ian Lurie is CEO and Founder of Portent, a full-service digital agency he started in 1995.

Come join CHIFOO for our fourth speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

CHIFOO presents "A Media for a Chorus of Voices" with Ward Cunningham!

Ward talk about the reinventing Wiki and how distributed internet’s idealistic founding with technological innovation has brewed since its inception. While venture money chases unicorns were happy to build trilobites because we’d be happy to inform the future even if we don’t own it.

About the Speaker

Ward Cunningham has worked for and consulted to daring startups and huge corporations. He has served as CTO, Director, Fellow, Principal Engineer and Inventor. He is best known for creating wiki.

Come join CHIFOO for our third speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

CHIFOO presents "Faulty by Design: A Psychological Examination of User Decision Making" with William Gribbons, PhD, Bentley University!

Our ability to navigate within a product is impacted by the underlying psychology of decision making. Bill presents a variety of design practices that UX designers can use to address complex decisions, facilitating more effective outcomes.

About the Speaker

Bill Gribbons is Director of the graduate Human Factors program at Bentley University, Waltham, Massachusetts.

Come join CHIFOO for our second speaker event for 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities".

http://bit.ly/1QoihjY

CHIFOO presents "Presumptive Design Workshop: Bounded Irrational Design Research Process" with Leo Frishberg, Phase II!

Based on his (and Charles Lambdin's) recently published book, Presumptive Design: Design Provocations for Innovation, Frishberg leads a half day workshop that turns the usual Discover | Define | Design process on its head. Presumptive Design (PrD) begins with the design of an artifact to provoke meaningful interactions and conversations with end-users. PrD is a low-cost method for reducing the risk of inventing the future.

Attendees will learn the theoretical frameworks on which it is based as well as have ample opportunity to practice the method. Topics include: the Owen/Kumar/Sato Design Thinking framework, the five principles of PrD, when it works and when it doesn't and much much more. As an added bonus, all workshop attendees will receive a signed copy of the book.

REGISTRATION

Early bird - by December 15th Late registration - starts January 15th

About the Speaker

For over 40 years, Leo has a B.A. in Environmental Planning from UCSC and an M.Arch from SCI-ARC. In 1984, Leo began his career as a User Experience Architect. In 2004, Leo began to formalize his approach to design research, a process he calls Presumptive Design.

Come join CHIFOO for our January 29th workshop and our second speaker event for 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities" on February 10th!

CHIFOO presents "Presumptive Design: UX in the Problem Space" with Charles Lambdin, Intel!

In this talk you will learn how Presumptive Design differs from traditional user-centered design, as well as how it welcomes and leverages our irrationality by utilizing failure as the main catalyst for insight.

About the Speaker

Charles Lambdin is a User Experience Researcher at Intel Corporation.

Come join CHIFOO for our first speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

Join us at the next PDX Design Research Group meeting on Wednesday, November 18th, 2015!

Research Into Results: Making Research Stick in Your Organization

UX and design researchers rarely work alone, and must collaborate with people in other roles to accomplish business and organizational goals. Anyone who is responsible for making research “stick” in their organization will benefit from hearing the perspectives and needs of non-researchers, including those in design, development, leadership, marketing, and others.

Panelists: Mike Lonergan, Product Manager at New Relic
Jolynn Mitchell, Materials Development Director at Nike
Jeremy Whitaker, UX Developer/Designer at SpendWell Health
Olivia Williamson, UX Architect at Autodesk

Networking 6:30 – 7:00 pm, presentation 7:00 – 8:00 pm
Filter Digital has graciously agreed to provide food and drinks, so come early to grab a bite and network!

Check out PDX Design Research Group's new Meetup page:
http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Design-Research-Group/

About This Organization...

The PDX Design Research Group is a multidisciplinary networking group focused on the role of research in the design of products, services and systems in business, government and non-profits. We welcome perspectives from all disciplines, including human-computer interaction, design, market research, and the social sciences, and others. Meetings are held every other month in downtown Portland, and will include speakers, panel discussions, workshops, and other events, with opportunities to network and discuss relevant topics with fellow research professionals.

Thank you for your interest in the PDX Design Research Group and we look forward to seeing you soon!

“Immersive Design” with Paul Culp, Super Genius Studio and Rob LaCosse, Intel & Independent Game Designer

CHIFOO presents two series speakers in our final “Gamefully Employed” speaker series meeting! Paul will explore if it is possible to mirror the quality, productivity and happiness of our digital life in our real lives in “Gaming Gratification's Effect On Life's Everyday Actions”. Last of the year, but certainly not least, Rob presents “Room to Grow: UX, Antifragility, and Live Action Games”. He will discuss creating the architect of a number of game systems and share his insights and experiences and the value of applying them to design and HCI.

Join us at the next PDX Design Research Group meeting on Wednesday, September 16th, 2015!

Teach a Grandmother, Change the World (R&D for Illiterate Populations), presented by Elena Moon and Jos Vaught, Osage Orange

How do you design a tablet app for poor, rural users who have never handled a digital device? What do you do when they speak no common language, and lack the ability to read in their own?

Last year Elena and Jos traveled to Rajasthan, India, to learn from an international group of grandmothers who were learning to become solar engineers, despite a lack of literacy. Each had traveled from a different part of the world to participate in the 6-month Solar Grandmother program, hosted by India’s Barefoot College, a 40-year-old grassroots institution dedicated to helping marginalized people build skills that bring solutions. After graduation, these women would bring light back to their villages -- light that means night classes for children, reduced danger from assault and rape, and less need for kerosene lanterns, improving the local air quality. In many cases, these Solar Grandmothers become respected leaders, presenting a model for women’s empowerment to the rest of their community.

This project focused on the challenges graduates faced upon returning to their villages. Since the necessary solar equipment can take months to arrive, graduates can struggle to maintain the skills they learned, often with little initial support from their communities. Osage Orange wanted to learn whether a digital tablet could help ease the transition, by extending and maintaining the skills learned during training. Over the course of three weeks, Osage Orange led a team of designers in interviewing and observing 60 Solar Grandmothers and their Barefoot teachers, both in class and back in their villages. Elena and Jos will walk us through that process, and share what they found.

Osage Orange, a human-centered design boutique based in Portland, Oregon, works with a variety of clients, from fortune 50s to startups, helping businesses research, conceptualize, and design elegant, compelling products. They work on complex problems across many industries, whether it’s an education platform for illiterate, rural poor communities, or a spaceship interface for NASA astronauts. Increasingly, their work focuses on projects which promote positive social and environmental outcomes.,

Elena Moon is a User Experience Consultant and the founder of Osage Orange. She has been doing a mix of research and design for the last 15 years and particularly enjoys socially and environmentally conscious projects. Her work has supported community agriculture, open source education, home energy conservation, and the deaf-blind community. She was a recipient of the Thomas J. Watson fellowship to conduct anthropology work with indigenous peoples in Australia and Papua New Guinea and has been involved with Portland's Interaction Design Association for many years, leading it from 2012-2014.

Jos Vaught is the lead User Experience Designer of Osage Orange. He has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a master’s in Applied Linguistics. From 2012-2014 he served as a co-organizer for Portland’s Interactive Design Association.

Date: Wednesday, September 16th, 2015 Time: Networking 6:30 – 7:00 pm, presentation 7:00 – 8:00 pm Location: Connective DX

Check out PDX Design Research Group's new Meetup page: http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Design-Research-Group/

Join us for another edition of TiE Oregon Pitch Club, the most educational pitch clinic in town! Register before midnight on 9/7 and receive $10 off using promo code LABOR during registration!

WHEN: September 10, 2015 @ 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm WHERE: Connective DX 2030 Northwest Pettygrove Street Portland, OR 97209 COST: TiE Members: FREE, Public: $25

Our featured speaker for this edition is Jill Wooldridge. She will be presenting a talk entitled: “Five Successful Strategies to Increase your Sales Numbers“.

Jill Wooldridge is a Small Business Performance Stategist. Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners from Coast to Coast in a wide variety of industries have trusted Jill to develop them in the skills to run all aspects of small business. She is the CEO and founder of JillWooldridge.com and creator of Mastering the Five Hats of Being a Business Owner. Since 1991, her coaching programs have been helping hundreds of clients have more satisfaction, more peace of mind and make more money.

At the heart of Jill’s work is her knowing that people start a business because they are good at something and are passionate about making their contribution. But they do NOT necessarily know everything about running a successful business. And they don’t always have the results and money they want. Whether it is cash flow management, hiring and managing people or increasing sales, Jill works strategically to develop people in the necessary skills so they can get where they want to go.

Then practice your pitches with us: investor pitches, concept pitches, sales pitches, co-founder pitches, product pitches, elevator pitches, etc. Bring your concept-, elevator-, co-founder-, sales, or investor pitch and get actionable and valuable feedback. Or, come be part of the audience and learn by watching, and providing feedback to others.

But, it pays not to just be a watcher: you will definitely get the most benefit from this event by getting up and practicing your pitch with us! Many went before you, lived to tell the tale (we don’t bite!) and got a lot of actionable feedback!

“Online Story-Driven Games” with Rym DeCoster, FIX Flyer, Geek Nights, & Datenighto

Through his geek-focused radio talk show, events and lecturing, Rym has had exposure to and a direct hand in a variety of projects that leverage game-inspired techniques in a computer interface, and will delight us with his stories about how he's observed the unique interaction of gaming and how HCI is maturing.

Join us for another edition of TiE Oregon Pitch Club, the most educational pitch clinic in town!

Our featured speaker for this edition is Jill Wooldridge. She will be presenting a talk entitled: “Five Successful Strategies to Increase your Sales Numbers“.

Jill Wooldridge is a Small Business Performance Stategist. Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners from Coast to Coast in a wide variety of industries have trusted Jill to develop them in the skills to run all aspects of small business. She is the CEO and founder of JillWooldridge.com and creator of Mastering the Five Hats of Being a Business Owner. Since 1991, her coaching programs have been helping hundreds of clients have more satisfaction, more peace of mind and make more money.

At the heart of Jill’s work is her knowing that people start a business because they are good at something and are passionate about making their contribution. But they do NOT necessarily know everything about running a successful business. And they don’t always have the results and money they want. Whether it is cash flow management, hiring and managing people or increasing sales, Jill works strategically to develop people in the necessary skills so they can get where they want to go.

Then practice your pitches with us: investor pitches, concept pitches, sales pitches, co-founder pitches, product pitches, elevator pitches, etc. Bring your concept-, elevator-, co-founder-, sales, or investor pitch and get actionable and valuable feedback. Or, come be part of the audience and learn by watching, and providing feedback to others.

But, it pays not to just be a watcher: you will definitely get the most benefit from this event by getting up and practicing your pitch with us! Many went before you, lived to tell the tale (we don’t bite!) and got a lot of actionable feedback!

You don't want to miss this edition of the longest running, most educational pitch clinic in town!

Our speaker is one of the luminaries of the Portland startup scene, TiE Charter Member/Board Member, Angela Jackson.

Angela is co-Managing Director of the Portland Seed Fund, Director of the PSU Business Accelerator, and a long-time advisor to and investor in startups.

Angela will speak about how the Portland Seed Fund works, what they look for in a startup, and how to pitch your idea and your team. And, she will be sharing some super important advice about something that most people forget about, and that is rarely practiced (but we will practice it with you if you get up and pitch this evening)! Want to know what that is? Join us and find out!

Then practice your pitches with us: investor pitches, concept pitches, sales pitches, co-founder pitches, product pitches, elevator pitches, etc.

Bring your concept-, elevator-, co-founder-, sales, or investor pitch and get actionable and valuable feedback. Or come be part of the audience and learn by watching, and providing feedback to others.

But, it pays not to just be a watcher: you will definitely get the most benefit from this event by getting up and practicing your pitch with us! Many went before you, lived to tell the tale (we don’t bite!) and got a lot of actionable feedback!

Snag your seat NOW! TiE Members: FREE (and you can bring a pre-registered guest for $10); Public: $25

Cre8Camp is an "unconference" for creative industries professionals.

As an unconference, we start with a blank schedule, some breakout rooms and time. You, the participants, decide what the topics are. Everyone who attends can present, share ideas and learn from their fellow campers. Many great ideas and friendships have come out of this day of high energy collaboration and learning.

The event is this Saturday, so register now to participate!

"The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” - Kurt Vonnegut

For an agenda and more info, please visit the website.

To register, visit the Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cre8camp-portland-july-2015-tickets-17580302157

Directions: https://goo.gl/maps/1WOx2

TiE Members: FREE / Public: $25

When you are pitching to investors, they will want to know whether they can trust you with their money: inevitably you're going to get to the question of what the financial projections for your business are. When are you going to make money and how much?

One thing that will be 100% certain about your numbers: they will be wrong.

However, what is actually more important, is how you arrived at those numbers. Investors will be more interested in hearing what assumptions you made about the number of customers you are expecting to get, how much it costs to sell to them, what the costs are of producing your product or services, how much staff you will need, etc. etc. You have to demonstrate that you know your market, your abilities and the things you will need to make your vision a profitable reality.

For some entrepreneurs, this is a really daunting topic. However, you must be able to understand your business and the numbers behind it, before you can convince anyone else to come along for the ride.

Join us for TiE Oregon Pitch Club where our July speaker, Ana Andueza, will shed light on how to construct your financial model.

As a CFO as well as an angel investor, Ana has broad experience in dealing with startups and finances.

Currently the CFO at CFO with Criterion Brock, she is a TiE member, angel investor, and vice chair of the OEN's Angel Oregon. Previously she was the chief financial officer for Irwin Commercial Finance and U.S. Bancorp Equipment Finance. Earlier in her career, Andueza held senior accounting positions with U.S. Bank and Deloitte and Touche.

Join us for this talk, networking and refreshments as well as pitch practice and actionable feedback!

"’Outside-In’ Engagement: Identity, Transformation, and Agency in Digital Story Based Games” with Josh Tanenbaum, Transformative Play Lab, University of California

Joshua will help us draw on theories of method acting training to investigate how to support the experience of transforming into a character in a digital narrative. Then we'll discuss the relationships between embodied game interfaces, tangible storytelling, game-based-learning, virtual worlds, and nonverbal communication.

At the basis of the transition from something that is a cool idea to an actual business, lies the question: what is the market for my intended product or service?

The answer to that question is many-faceted. What is the exact problem that you're addressing? Is the time right for your idea? Is the state of technology ready for your envisioned solution? Who are your intended customers and what do they look like? How many of them are there in your intended market area? How many are currently in the market for what you have to sell? And between you and your competition, how many will want to buy your solution instead of someone else's?

All of this is not an exact science - but the more realistic your estimates, the better your chances of gauging your chance of success, and the more credible you will be to a potential investor.

Come hear from Dave Shanley, new TiE Oregon Charter Member and CEO/Founder of Notion,who will speak about Market/ Opportunity Assessment.

After the talk, as always, we will be practicing pitches! Bring your presentations, with or without slide decks! Get up and pitch us on your concept, business, or idea, to sell, find co-founders, get funding or otherwise!

Cost: TiE Members: FREE (and you may pre-register a non-member guest for $10); Public: $25

For more information and to register please visit:

http://oregon.tie.org/event/tie-oregon-pitch-club-june-2015/?instance_id=403

"Mental Health & Social Impact Are No Game - Or Are They?" with Skyler Corbett, University of Portland Online Learning Development and Yori Kvitchko, SleepNinja Games

CHIFOO 2-for-1! Skyler will cover educational developments in the indie gaming, “You Have Gained A Level - Adding Empathy and Understanding to Online Education”. Yori will be filling in and covering the same topic as Will Lewis. He'll share the pros and cons of applying gameful design to HCI in “Games for Social Good”.

“Gamers Succeed Where Scientists Don’t- Combining Humans and Computers to Solve Scientific Problems” with Seth Cooper, Center for Game Science, Northeastern University

Rather than solving problems with a purely computational approach, combining humans and computers can provide a means for solving problems neither could solve alone. Seth will describe the challenges of mapping real-world problems onto games and ways to address these challenges. Further, Seth will discuss other current problem solving game projects and future possibilities.

Play Matters with David Galiel, Elbowfish

David will share how emerging developments in HCI are creating virtual civic spaces. Learn how David and Elbowfish succeed in applying game-inspired approaches to improving work, converting customers to fans, and harnessing the power of community.

Fieldwork for Human Computer Interaction: A 4-Part Workshop on Ethnographically-Informed Fieldwork

Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan

A growing number of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers and practitioners use the results of fieldwork to guide the design and evaluate the user experience of interactive systems and technologies. Why? Because data about real people in real situations spurs creativity and innovation around practical challenges, resulting in more useful and usable artifacts.

Fieldwork for HCI typically consists of firsthand observations made in the naturally occurring environment of use (as opposed to studies performed in a controlled environment). Many techniques are adapted from anthropology – particularly ethnography.

As the mobile app and manufacturing industries grow in Oregon, UX designers are increasingly recruited from out-of-state. The Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon - CHIFOO - recognizes a local need for more basic training in this area.

Workshop Format This practicum is a new offering by CHIFOO, separate from the popular monthly guest lecture series. Developed with industry experts Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan, this unique pilot program serves as a first test model for future educational programs by CHIFOO.

To conduct fieldwork well, the researcher needs the knowledge, ability and access to observe the activities and complexities of people within the context of their day-to-day pursuits. This makes it difficult to practice in a classroom-only or online environment. The methodology is best learned by apprenticeship and experience.

Each session builds on the prior one. Participants are expected to attend three private classroom sessions, to complete group assignments in between, and to ‘report out’ on the experience in teams at the last session, an open CHIFOO event. Sessions will be held:

Sunday, October 5, 12-4 pm Wednesday, October 15 6-9 pm Wednesday, October 29, 6-9 pm Wednesday, November 12, 6-9 pm

Who Should Participate? The practicum is tailored especially towards locals who seek a better command and understanding of the skills utilized by User Experience Analysts, Design Engineers, and Interaction Designers.

To make the learning experience as rich, collaborative and personalized as possible, the # of participants is capped at 16. Group exercises are designed to be completed in teams of 2-4.

About the Instructors

Dr. Sara Bly – Head Instructor – Sara Bly has been an active researcher and practitioner in qualitative user studies for more than 25 years. Ethnographically-informed fieldwork is a major component of her user experience studies, which focus on understanding the context of an activity as well as the specific user task. During Sara’s tenure at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, she served on multi-disciplinary teams with anthropologists, designers, and computer scientists. Sara has worked in a variety of companies and development teams, and has experience teaching user study techniques for both industry and academia. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of California, Davis. Currently Sara Bly lives in Oregon and consults nationally.

Francoise Brun-Cottan, Phd – Instructor - Anthropologist Francoise Brun-Cottan spent over a decade as a Work Place Ethnographer and Interaction Analyst with Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Specialties include:

Integration of ethnographic insights with engineering research, product/services development and design to inform innovation. Ethnography - Observation and interviewing, analysis and representations of work practices and user experience. Video ethnography Conversation and Interaction Analysis Work Practice and Participatory Design Studies. Currently Francoise Brun-Cottan consults for libraries, government agencies, large corporations and research agencies.

Clodine Mallinckrodt – Facilitator – From Wall Street to MarCom Way, Clodine Mallinckrodt’s varied background spans the early days of interactive multimedia and distance learning to data security and strategy consulting. Currently, Clodine is Manager of Ambulatory Reporting & Analytics for Providence Health & Services, where she enjoys enabling analyst teams to deliver data visualization and exploration tools to healthcare executives throughout the west. She helped develop new Providence Consumer Segments, is a GE-certified Change Facilitator, and trained in Lean. Based in Portland, OR, Clodine Mallinckrodt is Program Co-Chair for CHIFOO.

Register Online Be an Early Bird! Get the best price by registering before August 20.

Fieldwork for Human Computer Interaction: A 4-Part Workshop on Ethnographically-Informed Fieldwork

Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan

A growing number of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers and practitioners use the results of fieldwork to guide the design and evaluate the user experience of interactive systems and technologies. Why? Because data about real people in real situations spurs creativity and innovation around practical challenges, resulting in more useful and usable artifacts.

Fieldwork for HCI typically consists of firsthand observations made in the naturally occurring environment of use (as opposed to studies performed in a controlled environment). Many techniques are adapted from anthropology – particularly ethnography.

As the mobile app and manufacturing industries grow in Oregon, UX designers are increasingly recruited from out-of-state. The Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon - CHIFOO - recognizes a local need for more basic training in this area.

Workshop Format This practicum is a new offering by CHIFOO, separate from the popular monthly guest lecture series. Developed with industry experts Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan, this unique pilot program serves as a first test model for future educational programs by CHIFOO.

To conduct fieldwork well, the researcher needs the knowledge, ability and access to observe the activities and complexities of people within the context of their day-to-day pursuits. This makes it difficult to practice in a classroom-only or online environment. The methodology is best learned by apprenticeship and experience.

Each session builds on the prior one. Participants are expected to attend three private classroom sessions, to complete group assignments in between, and to ‘report out’ on the experience in teams at the last session, an open CHIFOO event. Sessions will be held:

Sunday, October 5, 12-4 pm Wednesday, October 15 6-9 pm Wednesday, October 29, 6-9 pm Wednesday, November 12, 6-9 pm

Who Should Participate? The practicum is tailored especially towards locals who seek a better command and understanding of the skills utilized by User Experience Analysts, Design Engineers, and Interaction Designers.

To make the learning experience as rich, collaborative and personalized as possible, the # of participants is capped at 16. Group exercises are designed to be completed in teams of 2-4.

About the Instructors

Dr. Sara Bly – Head Instructor – Sara Bly has been an active researcher and practitioner in qualitative user studies for more than 25 years. Ethnographically-informed fieldwork is a major component of her user experience studies, which focus on understanding the context of an activity as well as the specific user task. During Sara’s tenure at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, she served on multi-disciplinary teams with anthropologists, designers, and computer scientists. Sara has worked in a variety of companies and development teams, and has experience teaching user study techniques for both industry and academia. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of California, Davis. Currently Sara Bly lives in Oregon and consults nationally.

Francoise Brun-Cottan, Phd – Instructor - Anthropologist Francoise Brun-Cottan spent over a decade as a Work Place Ethnographer and Interaction Analyst with Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Specialties include:

Integration of ethnographic insights with engineering research, product/services development and design to inform innovation. Ethnography - Observation and interviewing, analysis and representations of work practices and user experience. Video ethnography Conversation and Interaction Analysis Work Practice and Participatory Design Studies. Currently Francoise Brun-Cottan consults for libraries, government agencies, large corporations and research agencies.

Clodine Mallinckrodt – Facilitator – From Wall Street to MarCom Way, Clodine Mallinckrodt’s varied background spans the early days of interactive multimedia and distance learning to data security and strategy consulting. Currently, Clodine is Manager of Ambulatory Reporting & Analytics for Providence Health & Services, where she enjoys enabling analyst teams to deliver data visualization and exploration tools to healthcare executives throughout the west. She helped develop new Providence Consumer Segments, is a GE-certified Change Facilitator, and trained in Lean. Based in Portland, OR, Clodine Mallinckrodt is Program Co-Chair for CHIFOO.

Register Online Be an Early Bird! Get the best price by registering before August 20.

October Meetup - details coming!

Fieldwork for Human Computer Interaction: A 4-Part Workshop on Ethnographically-Informed Fieldwork

A growing number of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers and practitioners use the results of fieldwork to guide the design and evaluate the user experience of interactive systems and technologies. Why? Because data about real people in real situations spurs creativity and innovation around practical challenges, resulting in more useful and usable artifacts.

Fieldwork for HCI typically consists of firsthand observations made in the naturally occurring environment of use (as opposed to studies performed in a controlled environment). Many techniques are adapted from anthropology – particularly ethnography.

As the mobile app and manufacturing industries grow in Oregon, UX designers are increasingly recruited from out-of-state. The Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon - CHIFOO - recognizes a local need for more basic training in this area.

Workshop Format This practicum is a new offering by CHIFOO, separate from the popular monthly guest lecture series. Developed with industry experts Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan, this unique pilot program serves as a first test model for future educational programs by CHIFOO.

To conduct fieldwork well, the researcher needs the knowledge, ability and access to observe the activities and complexities of people within the context of their day-to-day pursuits. This makes it difficult to practice in a classroom-only or online environment. The methodology is best learned by apprenticeship and experience.

Each session builds on the prior one. Participants are expected to attend three private classroom sessions, to complete group assignments in between, and to ‘report out’ on the experience in teams at the last session, an open CHIFOO event. Sessions will be held:

Sunday, October 5, 12-4 pm Wednesday, October 15 6-9 pm Wednesday, October 29, 6-9 pm Wednesday, November 12, 6-9 pm

Who Should Participate? The practicum is tailored especially towards locals who seek a better command and understanding of the skills utilized by User Experience Analysts, Design Engineers, and Interaction Designers.

To make the learning experience as rich, collaborative and personalized as possible, the # of participants is capped at 16. Group exercises are designed to be completed in teams of 2-4.

About the Instructors

Dr. Sara Bly – Head Instructor – Sara Bly has been an active researcher and practitioner in qualitative user studies for more than 25 years. Ethnographically-informed fieldwork is a major component of her user experience studies, which focus on understanding the context of an activity as well as the specific user task. During Sara’s tenure at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, she served on multi-disciplinary teams with anthropologists, designers, and computer scientists. Sara has worked in a variety of companies and development teams, and has experience teaching user study techniques for both industry and academia. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of California, Davis. Currently Sara Bly lives in Oregon and consults nationally.

Francoise Brun-Cottan, Phd – Instructor - Anthropologist Francoise Brun-Cottan spent over a decade as a Work Place Ethnographer and Interaction Analyst with Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Specialties include:

Integration of ethnographic insights with engineering research, product/services development and design to inform innovation. Ethnography - Observation and interviewing, analysis and representations of work practices and user experience. Video ethnography Conversation and Interaction Analysis Work Practice and Participatory Design Studies. Currently Francoise Brun-Cottan consults for libraries, government agencies, large corporations and research agencies.

Clodine Mallinckrodt – Facilitator – From Wall Street to MarCom Way, Clodine Mallinckrodt’s varied background spans the early days of interactive multimedia and distance learning to data security and strategy consulting. Currently, Clodine is Manager of Ambulatory Reporting & Analytics for Providence Health & Services, where she enjoys enabling analyst teams to deliver data visualization and exploration tools to healthcare executives throughout the west. She helped develop new Providence Consumer Segments, is a GE-certified Change Facilitator, and trained in Lean. Based in Portland, OR, Clodine Mallinckrodt is Program Co-Chair for CHIFOO.

Register Online Be an Early Bird! Get the best price by registering before August 20.

Fieldwork for Human Computer Interaction: A 4-Part Workshop on Ethnographically-Informed Fieldwork

Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan

A growing number of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers and practitioners use the results of fieldwork to guide the design and evaluate the user experience of interactive systems and technologies. Why? Because data about real people in real situations spurs creativity and innovation around practical challenges, resulting in more useful and usable artifacts.

Fieldwork for HCI typically consists of firsthand observations made in the naturally occurring environment of use (as opposed to studies performed in a controlled environment). Many techniques are adapted from anthropology – particularly ethnography.

As the mobile app and manufacturing industries grow in Oregon, UX designers are increasingly recruited from out-of-state. The Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon - CHIFOO - recognizes a local need for more basic training in this area.

Workshop Format This practicum is a new offering by CHIFOO, separate from the popular monthly guest lecture series. Developed with industry experts Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan, this unique pilot program serves as a first test model for future educational programs by CHIFOO.

To conduct fieldwork well, the researcher needs the knowledge, ability and access to observe the activities and complexities of people within the context of their day-to-day pursuits. This makes it difficult to practice in a classroom-only or online environment. The methodology is best learned by apprenticeship and experience.

Each session builds on the prior one. Participants are expected to attend three private classroom sessions, to complete group assignments in between, and to ‘report out’ on the experience in teams at the last session, an open CHIFOO event. Sessions will be held:

• Sunday, October 5, 12-4 pm
• Wednesday, October 15 6-9 pm
• Wednesday, October 29, 6-9 pm
• Wednesday, November 12, 6-9 pm

Who Should Participate? The practicum is tailored especially towards locals who seek a better command and understanding of the skills utilized by User Experience Analysts, Design Engineers, and Interaction Designers.

To make the learning experience as rich, collaborative and personalized as possible, the # of participants is capped at 16. Group exercises are designed to be completed in teams of 2-4.

About the Instructors

Dr. Sara Bly – Head Instructor – Sara Bly has been an active researcher and practitioner in qualitative user studies for more than 25 years. Ethnographically-informed fieldwork is a major component of her user experience studies, which focus on understanding the context of an activity as well as the specific user task. During Sara’s tenure at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, she served on multi-disciplinary teams with anthropologists, designers, and computer scientists. Sara has worked in a variety of companies and development teams, and has experience teaching user study techniques for both industry and academia. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of California, Davis. Currently Sara Bly lives in Oregon and consults nationally.

Francoise Brun-Cottan, Phd – Instructor - Anthropologist Francoise Brun-Cottan spent over a decade as a Work Place Ethnographer and Interaction Analyst with Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Specialties include:

Integration of ethnographic insights with engineering research, product/services development and design to inform innovation. Ethnography - Observation and interviewing, analysis and representations of work practices and user experience. Video ethnography Conversation and Interaction Analysis Work Practice and Participatory Design Studies. Currently Francoise Brun-Cottan consults for libraries, government agencies, large corporations and research agencies.

Clodine Mallinckrodt – Facilitator – From Wall Street to MarCom Way, Clodine Mallinckrodt’s varied background spans the early days of interactive multimedia and distance learning to data security and strategy consulting. Currently, Clodine is Manager of Ambulatory Reporting & Analytics for Providence Health & Services, where she enjoys enabling analyst teams to deliver data visualization and exploration tools to healthcare executives throughout the west. She helped develop new Providence Consumer Segments, is a GE-certified Change Facilitator, and trained in Lean. Based in Portland, OR, Clodine Mallinckrodt is Program Co-Chair for CHIFOO.

Register Online Be an Early Bird! Get the best price by registering before August 20.

Lost But Not Forgetten: The Thanhouser Studio Ned Thanhouser, Thanhouser Films

Film history has forgotten the pioneering productions created by the Thanhouser studio that operated in New Rochelle, New York during the birth of cinema in America. From 1910 to 1917 the Thanhouser studio produced and released more than 1,000 films, of which some 220 have survived. Reconstructing the history of his grandfather’s studio and the stories behind key executives, actors, technicians, directors, and the films they made has been Ned Thanhouser’s focus for more than 25 years. He will share these stories, as well as the challenges posed by decades of changing video technology and the surprising results of making the films available for free online.

About the Speaker Ned Thanhouser (@nthanhou) is the grandson of silent film pioneers Gertrude and Edwin Thanhouser and is president of Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. Since 1986, he has been actively involved in the research, acquisition, preservation and publication of the history, surviving films, and related ephemera from the Thanhouser studio that operated in New Rochelle, NY from 1909 to 1918. He is a member of Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) and the Society of Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) and has presented and published research papers at the SCMS conferences (2005, 2013), the AMIA Journal The Moving Image (2011), the Women and the Silent Screen conference (2006), and the Domitor conference (2012). He is also co-founder and vice-president of the International Youth Silent Film Festival which organizes competitions for filmmakers age 20 and under to create modern versions of silent films.

Give Dimensions, a Face, and a Beating Heart to Projects Through Storytelling with Leah Noble Davidson, LeahNobleDavidson.com

Since qualitative research, or market research, can largely be spit out by a computer, we’ll take a look at how one can move beyond big data and do what a computer cannot do—go inside the head of a person and learn about their motivations and goals. Humanity’s experience is constantly shifting and so is the motivation behind our fears and goals, and that shift changes how we experience and use things. Story allows one to put a finger on that pulse. Story gets right to the bottom of things, it uncovers how the user will actually use the product in this time/place, how they will experience it in their lives, in their own home/office etc. Story is research above market “fill in the blank” research. It exposes rituals, and when one works to streamline those rituals, innovation enters. Discovering this level of story has another great benefit: it can be used to created scene stealing pitches in front of clients. One can stand in front a user or a client and paint out the story of how this will be a great new part of their lives.

Speaking the Language of Meta-Principles: Consistency, Hierarchy, and Personality with Deborah Levinson, Nimble Partners

When designing or redesigning an application, Nimble Partners focuses on three core principles: consistency, hierarchy, and personality. We can think of these principles as if they’re part of a language. Consistency and hierarchy are the grammar people learn while using an application: the basic elements that define how a language is spoken. The “words” we speak—that is, the visual design characteristics we choose to convey a message—create an application’s personality. These principles are so fundamental to creating successful interfaces that we call them “meta-principles.” While technology that affects interfaces changes, the underlying meta-principles hold true.

Nimble Partners arrived at these three meta-principles after years of heuristic reviews, usability studies, and informal observation of digital applications. In this talk, Deborah will introduce these principles and show how they apply in examples, including a case study redesign of a web and mobile application to help users track diet and exercise.

Show, Don’t Tell: Storytelling Experience Design in Modern Comics with Mike Lonergan, Intel

Comics are a collaborative storytelling effort—many talented individuals contribute to the success or failure of each comic book, much as a good design team leverages complementary talents in delivering a stunning product. When their talents are combined, the writer (information architect) and artists (visual designers) attract attention and deliver the mood and flow (interaction design) to pull the reader along a highly stylized, deliberate path. Mike will take you on an illuminating journey of discovery, highlighting his favorite design techniques in comics that facilitate not just the mechanics of reading but the pure enjoyment of these colorful stories.

Along the way, you’ll be granted a tour of comic book storytelling techniques that can enrich your design communications such as story boarding, visual cues and iconography and unique ways to show your users the happy path without having to tell them.

Persona Stories: Weaving Together Qual and Quant for a Richer Picture with Whitney Quesenbery, WQusability.com

Stories have power to add empathy and connection to our work. They can help us learn about people, culture, and context—why, when, and how our products might be used—and share this with a design team. Stories permeate UX techniques from user stories to storyboards. They come to full power when used with personas: the persona provides a fully envisioned lead character for the story, a perspective through which interactions can be explored, and a voice for the emotional reactions to design ideas.

Creating stories for personas is a craft. They are not fiction, but are grounded in the data and user research that informs the persona. They are not fact, but are imagined events, shaped to explore possibilities. They are realistic, but not perhaps real, because they represent not just one individual or event, but something that might happen, and that provides insights into a user experience.

We’ll look at some structures that are helpful in crafting persona stories. And at questions like whether to write in first, second, or third person—and when each is valuable. We’ll create a quick story and share it, showing how impromptu stories can help in design sessions.

DIY Storytelling With Video with Julie Yamamoto, CMD Agency

To kick off this year’s series on storytelling, we’ll try on a few constructs for size. In this discussion, we will review a variety of ways to structure narratives, from the common to the complex, paired with examples from our current digital environment. Attendees will have the opportunity to survey different forms of storytelling and determine if some may work for their organizations’ needs. Hands-on talk about how to use video capture equipment and editing for storytelling and capturing user experiences for design, usability, research, social sharing and other needs.

This month, CHIFOO presents not one, but THREE speakers who will quantify their own takes on Kick-Ass for us.

Part One: “Authentically Kick-Ass” with Robert Lacosse. The concept of kick-ass is, more often than not, resting precariously upon the notion of authenticity: that which is either original or conforms to an accepted norm set forth by an original. However, is it really that simple? In actuality, the term is more loaded in nature than it would appear. Authenticity is tied, as are all sought-after commodities, to economic dynamics. We’ll discuss why some products and concepts are viewed as authentic and other, tandem, items as old-hat and what that means to us as UX professionals.

Part Two: “What Should You Measure and How Do You Present It for Impact?” with Nechama Katan. Nechama will provide a process for continuous data discovery and analysis focused on metrics and measures that matter. We will explore some tools that provide self-service analytics and show how they can be used to maintain a relevant set of measures. Finally, good data is not enough, how it is presented matters.

Part Three: “Hopeful Monsters: Punctuated Equilibrium and the Post-Book Age” with Corey Pressman. The advent of hypertext and the new art of interaction design signal the dawn of a post-book epoch. We will focus on the User Experience Design opportunities this moment affords. Innovative products and features such as content-rich apps and shared marginalia will be presented, evaluated, and discussed.

Demonstrating the value of design in business is key to positioning design, UX and HCI more strategically in an organization. Yet demonstrating this has been a vexing challenge for designers. Using metrics that matter to leaders as the kernel in a story is key to meeting business leaders halfway in their quest to understand what design, UX and HCI can do for them. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, there is not a clear-cut set of metrics, a “clip of silver bullets”, that works for all situations. What to measure then, is highly situational. Design Thinking is perfect for developing solutions to highly situational challenges.

This presentation will cover the presenter’s examples and experiences in successfully applying Design Thinking to demonstrate the value of design, UX and HCI to business in: •Determining what to measure for a situation •Measuring what matters to key stakeholders •Designing a viable, sustained measurement system •Communicating the results with impact to key stakeholders

About the Speaker Steve Sato is the founder of Sato+Partners, a management consulting and organization development firm by and for design leaders. Steve works with executives, directors and their teams to build experience, design and innovation capability through using existing work to bootstrap. Previously, Steve was at Hewlett-Packard and led its customer-centered strategy and planning consultancy, then later in Corporate Design, led building experience design capability across the company. Steve was formerly at Doblin Group as a design planner and also at Accenture, pioneering customer-centered design for the company in their advanced R&D group.

He has a Masters in Design from the Institute of Design at IIT, Masters of Engineering Management from Northwestern University and a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois. His clients include Microsoft, Yahoo!, Coca-Cola, Industrial Design Society of America, The Hershey Company and HP. See www.satopartners.com for further details.

The Ford Immersive Vehicle Environment (FiVE) applies a variety of real-time, advanced visualization technologies to allow efficient, quick and effective evaluations of vehicle design proposals. Ford is using virtual and augmented reality in a unique and amazing way to simulate a multitude of customer perspectives very early in the development process. Their approach is different…it combines the best of what the virtual and physical worlds have to offer.

How did Ford get there? Elizabeth will explain how the need for FiVE was fulfilled, the importance of quantifying the vehicle-owner subjective relationship, and the consideration of human-machine interaction. She will explain the totally awesome VR systems used at Ford and the successes and challenges of virtual reviews. She will relay the practical (and impractical) principles Ford employs regarding conducting virtual assessments, as well as the types of assessments that are used in vehicle development and engineering. Elizabeth will detail how Ford quantifies the emotional connection between you and your car. And she will also provide insight on where gaps exist in the current suite of VR tools, and thoughts on the future of human/computer interaction for vehicle engineering and design.

About the Speaker Elizabeth Baron is a Technical Specialist in Virtual Reality and Advanced Visualization at Ford Motor Company. She manages the Ford immersive Vehicle Evaluation (FiVE) Lab in Product Development, and provides immersive virtual reality evaluation systems used for industrial design and product development. She develops and deploys highly realistic immersive systems that address the unique challenges of automotive design, engineering and ergonomics. She has led the development of immersive VR systems that satisfy evaluation criteria for engineering, ergonomics and aesthetic design to allow different disciplines in product development to communicate in a common environment.

Elizabeth began her career at Ford in 1988 working as a software developer for Ford’s product design software, later specializing in visualization and solid modeling software. She received her BS in Industrial Technology and Computer Science from Eastern Michigan University. She is also a qualified Six Sigma Academy Black Belt. She is a member of the Human Motion Simulation Consortium at the University of Michigan, the Society of Automotive Engineers, IEEE and ACM.

The program will begin with a review of Honda’s user research and design research process while developing new applications for the company’s 3-D heads-up display prototype. It will be a fairly candid talk showing lessons learned and how the team changed focus mid-way on design direction after learning about new things while designing. This included focusing more on the driver’s primary task instead of secondary tasks to help create a more engaging (“kick-ass”) experience for the driver.

About the Speaker Victor Ng Thow Hing is a Principal Scientist working at the Honda Research Institute in Mountain View, Calif. He has worked on projects related to digital human modeling, intelligent systems, human-robot interaction, and now human-machine interaction in the car.

RSVP on meetup.com

The very first PDX Graph Meetup!

Huston will be giving an introduction to Graphs, the Graph data model advantage, as well as some tools on how to get your own ideas and Graph Applications up and running!

This talk revisits a framework for thinking about design and emotion introduced in 2007. A little over half a decade later, design has advanced to being one of the key differentiators in the business arena—namely for its power to forge strong emotional bonds. In other words, design helps experiences kick ass. How does one measure such a seemingly unquantifiable trait? This talk addresses this question with the second chapter of our story.

The competitive environment for technology is changing, and its impact on experience design is deep: capabilities, features, and functions are no longer enough. Emotional engagement will distinguish successful consumer experiences of the future. Designing in this world requires us to change the way we think about people and products. This presentation provides a brief overview of a counter-intuitive emotional design approach and its application to one of the hallmarks of the next phase in interaction design: Natural User Interface.


About the Speaker August de los Reyes (@augustdlr) is a designer. He lives in Silicon Valley and works for Samsung. Previously with Microsoft, his teams helped design Windows 8, Surface, and the design language formerly known as Metro. He is a graduate of Harvard and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Let's meet to exchange ideas and techniques for creating and communicating personas and their stories. We'll start by discussing different ideas and approaches to persona development, then we'll work in groups to define, build and communicate personas for a mock client. The mock client will give feedback on presentations.

When: Tuesday, April 16th at 6pm

Where: ISITE Design - 2030 NW Pettygrove St., Portland, OR in the community room.

As a reminder, Webvisions is right around the corner and IxDA members receive a 15% discount. Below you will see info and instructions on how to receive the discount.

Explore the Future with BoingBoing's Mark Frauenfelder

IxDA Members Save 15%!

WEBVISIONS PORTLAND

May 22-24, 2013

Oregon Convention Center

WebVisions (http://www.webvisionsevent.com/portland/) explores the future of web and mobile design, digital media, UX and technology with an all-star lineup of visionary speakers, including Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing.net and MAKE Magazine, Ethan and Malachai Nicolle (creators of AxeCop), Carla Diana (Smart Design NYC), Jason Kunesh (Director of UX, Obama for America), Carolyn Chandler (Manifest Digital), Mark Trammell (Twitter), and more!

"WebVisions is like the medium that spawned it: unique, personal, honest, emotional and eye-opening."

–Jeffrey Zeldman

Click the "Buy Now" button to add a pass and after the Checkout Now is clicked, enter the promo code "IXDAPDX" under the order subtotal.

Register online at http://webvisions-portland.strangertickets.com/

Non-members $5, or can join CHIFOO at the door for $25

Life is precious. Why waste it? Every moment counts! Experiential venues from theme parks to museums, schools, shopping centers and even hospitals are re-designing their experiences by transforming everyday activities into making memories for a lifetime. How much of our lives are robbed by killing time for the next teller, the doctor, tires being changed, waiting for a table or that 4 minute thrill ride?

Christopher Stapleton discusses how his applied research firm, Simiosys, conducts Experiential Make-overs to assess, design and test novel entertainment alternatives that give venues that extra kick. His collaboration with academic, commercial and civic institutions has challenged him to quantify and qualify the elusive “Wow factor,” in appealing to mainstream audiences. He will share his approach and tools that can apply to human factor design.

About the Speaker Christopher Stapleton (@MixingRealities) is a Creative Venture Catalyst for Simiosys.com, Real World Laboratory. He has been consulting, designing, prototyping and delivering innovative experiences for organizations such as Disney, Universal, Nickelodeon, Sanrio & Paramount Parks leveraging experiential research collaborations with Canon Inc., Technical University of Munich and University of Central Florida funded by agencies such as NASA, NSF and the Departments of Education and Defense. He is the Founding Director of the Media Convergence Lab at the Institute for Simulation and Training, Founding President of the Rural Heritage Center and a founding faculty member of the University of Central Florida Digital Media Program. He has served as chair on the conference committees for ACM/Siggraph, IEEE/ISMAR and IEEE/VR. Mr. Stapleton received his start working on Broadway and designing for film, TV and computer graphics in New York City where he earned his Master of Fine Arts in design for theater and film at the New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Come talk about personas! Then, afterwards, we can have beer.

Thanks to mobile device and social networks, enterprise computing stands at the start of the biggest revolution in computing since the transition to client-server. Tablets and smartphones are not laptops with small screens and no keyboards, yet that is how enterprise IT executives persist in treating them. In fact, to fully grasp the potential of these devices, enterprises will need to re-image every business process and user experience in the enterprise. This will be expensive, but when done correctly, the ROI will indeed kick-ass. This talk will address some of the challenges facing companies in thinking about the social, mobile web and how to approach user experience and business process design to achieve kick-ass ROI.

About the Speaker Since 2002, Paul Brody (@pbrody) has served as a Partner with IBM Global Business Services and Global Lead, Electronics Industry Strategy Practice, and has led engagements with leading electronics companies in the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Brody has worked extensively with business strategy, supply chain management and product life cycle management, including planning and scheduling, logistics, and procurement solutions.


Prior to IBM, he held senior supply chain executive positions at ClearCross and i2 Technologies. He has also been a consultant with McKinsey & Co., primarily in the high-tech electronics sector in the United States and across the Asia Pacific region. Brody began his career at Mobile Telecommunications Services Ltd., where he developed marketing programs for one of Africa’s first mobile cellular systems, turning the company into a national brand name. He holds a B.A. in Economics, and a Certificate in African Studies, from Princeton University.

Please join us for a fun-filled evening with Patricia Colley, UX extraordinaire, and improv/gaming doyenne. Here's what she's got in store for us...

Fun and games with a purpose

The damp chill of winter may be upon us, but why hibernate in a cave when you can come out for a night of impromptu creativity games? Brought to you by Patricia Colley, problem-solver, disruptive collaborator, game-master and improviser extraordinaire!

UX types are very clever, and we're great at thinking problems through, but sometimes our intellect hits a wall, and we need a creative jolt. To make imaginative leaps, we have to calm the inner critic, focus on the moment, and step intuitively into the unknown. Getting your whole brain and body engaged in the here & now of creative flow - that's where the magic happens.

How do we do that? Let's find out together!

We'll do some group exercises to shake out the cobwebs and get your juices going. We'll be up on our feet and doing stuff about half the time, talking and moving and maybe a little drawing, too. We'll tell stories and reflect in between. We'll share ideas on how to keep creativity going in practice, when time is short, inspiration is low, and pressure is high. We may even learn a little something about collaboration along the way.

You'll come out of it re-energized, or your money back!

Please join us for GlobeSherpa's first Open House.

Meet the team, learn about GlobeSherpa's work in mobile ticketing, and chat with other GlobeSherpa investors, friends, and family.

Light refreshments, beer, and wine will be provided. Please feel free to bring a friend.